Against All Odds
by Mvsyk
Summary: Captain Archer rescues a Vulcan girl from a slave market, yet she seems to fear all Humans. As she slowly starts become a part of his crew and personal life, her true story is discovered.
1. Chapter 1

A groan escaped her as she tried to open her eyes against the bright lights.

"Is she alright?" a voice from her left asked in ... yes, in English.

"Oh," another voice - this one from the right - answered "apart from her injuries she's perfectly fine. She's probably not accustomed to the bright lighting though."

After she had carefully opened one eye to check her surroundings, both of the girl's eyelids fluttered open. In disbelief and utter shock, she stared at the two men in front of her. One of them was Human - she knew that for a fact. He wore a blue jumpsuit with symbols and patches attached to his shoulders and his face was somewhat stern-looking ... maybe even a little worried. She wasn't familiar with the other man's species though. His face was lined with fine ridges, a little more elegant but not unlike the Klingons', and his eyes had an icy blue tinge. To that, he seemed to be a doctor, for he was holding a scanner in one and a vaccination in the other hand.

"Can you ... understand me?" the Human tried carefully "I'm Captain Jonathan Archer. You're on Enterprise, my ship. ... We're from Earth." he added after a slight pause.

The doctor took a step closer and attempted to hold the scanner to the girl's temple, but she jerked away unexpectedly, throwing the device out of the alien's hand.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed at him in accent-free English which seemed to surprise both of them. "How did I get here? What do you want?!"

"Look." the Human sighed "We're not going to hurt you. This is Phlox, the ship's physician. He needs to check your health. You won't feel a thing."

"Why am I here?!" The girl was still reluctant to let Phlox scan her.

"We found you at a slave market." the captain explained "Someone had just ... bought you and was about to take you to their ship."

"Why didn't you let them?! That was supposed to be my new owner!"

"From what our scans show, you're Vulcan. Vulcan ethics speak against slavery. But the main reason why we took you away from him was that he was beating you up for nothing and you were starting to take severe injuries ... if you get what I mean."

She knew exactly what he meant - and at that point she realized her pounding head and aching limbs.

The Human seemed pleased with himself "Now why don't you let Phlox take those scans. Then we can talk."

"No!" she almost shrieked. Both men looked puzzled. "He's male!" the girl yelped "Males hurt me."

All of the girl's previous owners had been males. Big, lanky, Tellarite, Orion, ... but all of them had had one thing in common: Cruel violence towards her. And if she could negotiate possible pain away - and those two men sure looked like they did a lot of negotiating - she would do her best.

As the captain's confused expression didn't change, she continued "All of my owners, all my life, have hurt me. No matter what I did. So if you plan to keep your promises, Captain, and you don't want to hurt me, you'll keep away from me."

This was turning out to be much worse than Jonathan Archer had expected it to. The young Vulcan they had rescued from near death at a trading post had turned out to have a phobia of all things male.

"You're wounds need to be treated." he tried again.

But the girl shook her head. "Not by him."

Maybe he should have started the conversation a little harsher, he thought. Would she think of him as her owner she would have done as he said. But the captain just couldn't get himself to be harsh on someone so young, who had seen so much bad over the last years. And he couldn't ever imagine playing slave holder to a Vulcan.

Sickbay's doors slid open with a slight hissing sound behind him and someone entered. The person stopped walking in the middle of the room, looking around. Doctor, captain and patient were well hidden behind a heavy white curtain - therefore invisible to anyone else in sickbay.

"Hello? Doctor ...?"

For some odd reason, Captain Archer thought, his first officer had one hell of a talent when it came to arriving at the perfect moment.


	2. Chapter 2

"What are you -" Commander T'Pol interrupted herself as she caught sight of the girl the away team had brought aboard "What, might I ask, happened on the surface?"

"Long story." Archer sighed "We'd tell you more if she'd let us take scans."

The doctor spoke up "She seems ... scared. Particularly of males, so it seems."

"She's a slave girl." the captain explained, watching his first officer's expression go blank in disbelief.

"She's Vulcan." T'Pol looked at the doctor, then at her captain and then at the girl "She can't be a slave."

"Well, she was." Captain Archer was starting to lose his patience. He needed answers - and he needed them soon, because Starfleet and the Vulcan council would want a report on the incident.

Meanwhile, the girl's posture had relaxed as she stared at the science officer curiously. A female of her own kind ... maybe this ship wasn't as bad after all. But the Human male was obviously still in charge, so she decided to stay sceptical.

Phlox had evidently noticed her curious looks.

"Would you let her take the scans?" he asked gently.

She nodded and watched the doctor hand his scanning device to the other Vulcan.

Medical scans had never been performed on the slave while she was conscious. Her owner's doctors had always given her a horrible medication to make her fall asleep while they did their work.

Meanwhile T'Pol had stepped next to the girl's bed, cautiously holding the scanner to her cheek and slowly moving it around.

"She is Vulcan." the commander reported "Approximately 9 Earth years of age ... with no detectable illness or injuries -"

She interrupted herself yet again. This time, because her patient's little hand had clasped around her wrist, making her unable to move the scanner further.

Adorable, Captain Archer thought to himself, though he would never admit to it.

Even Phlox had grown a big smile on his lips as he watched the two Vulcans.

"You'll have to let me finish." T'Pol told the girl in a gentle, yet still definite tone.

"But ... the sound the device makes is strange. I don't like it." she objected, making both Archer and Phlox chuckle. No one who knew her talked back to T'Pol this easily.

To their surprise, the commander reacted completely calm - with no evident annoyance whatsoever.

"It always does that." she said "It won't hurt you."

A few minutes later the captain and his science officer were walking down a corridor towards the mess hall.

"What are you planning to do next?" T'Pol questioned, having reverted back to her usual all-business Vulcan manner.

Captain Archer chuckled "Eat?"

"I mean with the girl."

"I know. I'm just having you on." he winked, then thought for a moment "I'm going to contact Starfleet and see what they think. In the meantime, we should make her feel at home. You should - ... Don't look at me like that, T'Pol."

The Vulcan had stopped walking and was now looking at her captain with a sceptically raised eyebrow.

"I am not going to ... "babysit"." she told him sternly.

"You might have to." Archer shrugged "You're the only one who she won't bite if you try to touch her. And ... she's Vulcan. She might want to know a little more about her own species."

The science officer suppressed an audible sigh at his words, to which he kindly, and somewhat teasingly, replied to with a quick kiss on the cheek.

She turned with a start "Now what if someone saw this?"

"No one saw this." Archer laughed. "Captain's mess, 1900 hours." he added, before striding away, an amused grin still planted on his face.

It took a moment for T'Pol to compose herself. The captain and her had only been a little more open with their feelings for each other for a few weeks and she was already beginning to regret it.

The only other person who knew about it was -

"Hey there, you look a little lost." Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker called from behind her "Did the captain leave you speechless again?" he winked.

The chief engineer had definitely not been her first choice, but Captain Archer had insisted they tell him, because he was "always around them anyway, so he'd probably notice soon enough".

"If I'm not careful," the first officer started as they continued walking together "he will kiss me in the middle of the bridge while we're on duty someday."

"Mhm, love to see that." Tucker grinned. But before he could earn himself a death-glare he added "Seen our guest yet?"

"Just now in sickbay. I had to perform the scans on her, because she seems to be scared of Phlox."

"Not just him. All of us." the engineer sighed "So, she's really Vulcan?"

"She's really Vulcan."


	3. Chapter 3

Doctor Phlox was used to silence in his sickbay. Not complete silence - there was always some kind of animal scuttling about its cage, but other than that it could for sure be called silence. He didn't mind it at all. Yet the Denobulan was used to an empty sickbay in silence - patients always made good company. The little Vulcan, however, would just sit on her bed in complete silence, watching the monitors on his desk. If asked a question, she would jolt up, but never answer. It made the doctor feel uneasy. He knew Vulcans weren't the best at conversations, but at least they would answer or have questions of their own - especially a child.

There were exceptions though. For example one day Commander Tucker came rushing in with a burnt hand from tinkering in engineering. The girl and him spent a good hour talking after his treatment had been completed. The engineer was the only man on Enterprise who she didn't seem to fear that much.

Maybe, the Doctor once realized, that was because Commander Tucker was a very open person - very easily read and understood. At least that was what T'Pol kept complaining about: How predictable and emotionally open he was.

Ensign Sato would also drop by to check on their guest every once in a while. A few days ago she had started trying to teach the girl some Vulcan vocabulary.

After one of these 'lessons' the young Ensign approached Phlox. "I was just wondering," she mentioned, "I don't even know her name ... and she won't tell me,"

The Denobulan shrugged lightly, "You're asking the wrong person, Hoshi. She hasn't spoken a single word to me."

A faint smile appeared on her lips as she caught the disappointment in his voice, "Give it time, Doctor,"

And while the life on the entire starship seemed to have started revolving around the rescued slave girl - everyone kept asking about her condition, wondering how she got enslaved; she was every conversation's main topic at that point - two people kept the business running.

The com at her door sounded, making T'Pol look up from the book she was reading. Tired from a long day, not at all in the mood for Trip's crazy schemes, Malcolm's new security protocols or Hoshi's translation codes, she opened the door to stand face to face with Captain Archer himself.

She wasn't even sure if she wanted to deal with him right now, though she would never have admitted that her heart did skip a beat when she caught sight of him.

"Yes ...?" The Vulcan just about kept her composure, tilting her head to the left very slightly.

"Can I come in?" Archer chuckled. His grin grew even wider when he noticed her blushing a light shade of olive.

T'Pol stole a glance at a panel on her desk which was showing the time. Turning back to the captain she replied as innocently as possible - just to make him laugh even more. "It's 23:00 hours, Captain. You shouldn't be in your first officer's quarters at this time of night."

He thought about that for a moment "What if it's about something highly important concerning the crew?"

"I might make an exception for that," she swiftly stepped aside to let him enter the room.

She watched him as he took his time, taking off his shoes and sitting down on her bed.

'He's testing you,' T'Pol thought to herself, grimly realizing that she was falling for it head-first.

She tried to go along with it,"What kind of "important matter concerning the crew" do you want to discuss?"

"Well,", Archer got up again and took a few steps towards her, "The crew might suffer from their captain going crazy,"

He was so close now that his first officer had to look upwards to meet his eyes.

"And why," she wondered, "Would the captain "go crazy"?"

He laid a hand to her cheek and placed a soft kiss on her lips before answering. "Because he has to sit next to his second in command all day and is not allowed to lay a hand on her," he sighed dramatically, "Don't you understand what kind of pain that is?"

"No." It was meant as both a humorous reply and the truth at the same time.

Using her small figure to her advantage, T'Pol slipped out of his embrace.

It was her time to tease him. She didn't get very far though.

Before she could take another step, his arms had slung themselves around her waist once more and in a competitive play-fight both of them landed on her bed.

"I win," Archer grinned triumphantly.

T'Pol frowned, "You always win,"

They knew exactly that not much more would happen that night.

Jonathan Archer was an ordinary Human - with ordinary Human instincts and emotions. A small part of him wanted to follow these instincts, but another part of him knew that he was possibly the first Human to have something close to a relationship with a Vulcan. And if he had to wait until she was used to the emotions, he would.

He was reminded of the beauty of that kind of relationship when he noticed that said Vulcan had fallen fast asleep in his arms.


End file.
